Historically high speed electronic: cameras have used an imager that has a multitude of parallel outputs, or channels (e.g., 16, 32, or even 256 or more channels with one for each line in the display), to increase the effective bandwidth of the camera. In such implementations, each channel requires duplicate electronic circuits that run at the same nominal video rate. Eventually, all of the channels have to be recombined to display the final image.
There are many draw backs to such implementations. One is the need for special imagers (rather than off-the-shelf) having many output channels, which dramatically increases the price since such imagers may cost 50 times as much as an off the shelf two channel imager. A second is the increased costs for the additional components especially as higher and higher bandwidths are desired. A third is the labor intensive problem of correcting the imbalance in outputs of the large number of channels resulting from tolerances of the various elements used in each channel. With higher and higher speeds in electronic cameras, the differences between the various channels, even slight differences, contribute more and more to undesirable visual effects in the displayed images presented by those cameras.
It would be desirable to have a fast electronic camera (i.e., high frame rate with shuttering capability) with few channels that can provide improved image resolution at low cost with a few high speed, high cost electronic components in combination with a low cost imager in lieu of many low cost electronic components and a high cost imager as in the prior art. To provide that advantage it would be desirable to multiplex the higher cost components to provide an increased effective bandwidth while using low cost components without having to correct imbalance. The present invention provides such a camera.